Notes on on Pronoun Agreement

The indefinite pronouns anyone, anybody, everyone, everybody, someone, somebody, no one, and nobody are always singular. This is sometimes perplexing to writers who feel that everyone and everybody (especially) are referring to more than one person. The same is true of either and neither, which are always singular even though they seem to be referring to two things.

The need for pronoun-antecedent agreement can create gender problems. If one were to write, for instance, "A student must see his counselor before the end of the semester," when there are female students about, nothing but grief will follow. One can pluralize, in this situation, to avoid the problem:
                   
                      Students must see their counselor before the end of the semester.
                 Or, one could say
                      A student must see his or her counselor. . . .

Too many his's and her's eventually become annoying, however, and the reader becomes more aware of the writer trying to be conscious of good form than he or she is of the matter at hand. Remember that when we compound a pronoun with something else, we don't want to change its form.

Following this rule carefully often creates something that "doesn't sound good." You would write, "This money is for me," so when someone else becomes involved, don't write, "This money is for Fred and I." Try these:
                  
                    This money is for him and me.
                    This arrangement is between Fred and him.
                    Those are both good sentences.

One of the most frequently asked questions about grammar is about choosing between the various forms of the pronoun who: who, whose, whom, whoever, whomever. The number (singular or plural) of the pronoun (and its accompanying verbs) is determined by what the pronoun refers to; it can refer to a singular person or a group of people:

                     The person who hit my car should have to pay to fix the damages.
                     The people who have been standing in line the longest should get in first.

It might be useful to compare the forms of who to the forms of the pronouns he and they. Their forms are similar:

	Subject Form	Possessive Form	Object Form
Singular	he who	his whose	him whom
Plural	they who	their whose	them whom

To choose correctly among the forms of who, re-phrase the sentence so you choose between he and him. If you want him, write whom; if you want he, write who.

Who do you think is responsible? (Do you think he is responsible?)

Whom shall we ask to the party? (Shall we ask him to the party?)

Give the box to whomever you please. (Give the box to him.)

Give the box to whoever seems to want it most. (He seems to want it most. [And then the clause "whoever seems to want it most" is the object of the preposition "to."])

Whoever shows up first will win the prize. (He shows up first.)

Notes on Adjective Order

What is the correct order of adjectives before a noun? 

Michael Swan (Practical English Usage, Oxford University Press, 1997) writes:

"Unfortunately, the rules for adjective order are very complicated, and different grammars disagree about the details"

He does, however, go on to list some of the most important rules:

Adjectives of color, origin, material and purpose usually go in order.

Article	Colour	Origin	Material	Purpose	Noun
	red	Spanish	leather	riding	boots
a		Venetian	glass	flower	vase

Other adjectives usually go before words of color, origin, material and purpose. It is impossible to give exact rules, but adjectives of size, length and height often come first.

• The round glass table (NOT the glass round table)
• A big, modern brick house (NOT a modern, big brick house)
• Long, flexible steel poles
• A tall, ancient oak-tree

Adjectives which express judgements or attitudes usually come before all others. Examples are lovely, definite, pure, absolute, extreme, perfect, wonderful, silly.

• A lovely, long, cool drink
• Who's that silly fat man over there?

Numbers usually go before adjectives.

• Six large eggs
• The second big shock

First, next and last most often go before one, two, three etc.

• The first three days
• My last two jobs

He does not mention age, which would normally go after adjectives of size, length and height, but before color, origin, material and purpose. 

• A big old straw hat
• A charming young university student

Thus, a complete list could be:

(article) + number + judgement/attitude + size/length/height + age + color + origin + material + purpose + noun 

*Participle comes after color. “The green hand-blown French bottle...” “The first blue-eyed American girl...”

Notes on Prepositions: Supplementary

Prepositions of Time

We use at to designate specific times.

• The train is due at 12:15 p.m.

We use on to designate days and dates.

• My brother is coming on Monday.
• We're having a party on the Fourth of July.

We use in for nonspecific times during a day, a month, a season, or a year.

• She likes to jog in the morning.
• It's too cold in winter to run outside.
• He started the job in 1971.
• He's going to quit in August.

Prepositions of Place

We use at for specific addresses.

•  Mr. Green lives at 55 Boretz Road in Durham.

We use on to designate names of streets, avenues, etc.

• Her house is on Boretz Road.

And we use in for the names of land-areas (towns, counties, states, countries, and continents).

• She lives in Durham.
• Durham is in Windham County.
• Windham County is in Connecticut. 

We use for when we measure time (seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years).

• He held his breath for seven minutes.She's lived there for seven years.
• The British and Irish have been quarreling for seven centuries.

We use since with a specific date or time.

• He's worked here since 1970.
• She's been sitting in the waiting room since two-thirty.

Prepositions of Location: in, at, and on and No Preposition
IN (the) bed* the bedroom the car (the) class* the library* school*	AT class* home the library* the office school* work	ON the bed* the ceiling the floor the horse the plane the train	NO PREPOSITION downstairs downtown inside outside upstairs uptown
* You may sometimes use different prepositions for these locations.

Prepositions of Movement

We use to in order to express movement toward a place.They were driving to work together.

• She's going to the dentist's office this morning.

Toward and towards are also helpful prepositions to express movement. These are simply variant spellings of the same word; use whichever sounds better to you.

• We're moving toward the light.
• This is a big step towards the project's completion.

With the words home, downtown, uptown, inside, outside, downstairs, upstairs, we use no preposition. Grandma went upstairs

• Grandpa went home.
• They both went outside.

Prepositions with Nouns, Adjectives, and Verbs

Prepositions are sometimes so firmly wedded to other words that they have practically become one word.

NOUNS and PREPOSITIONS
approval of awareness of belief in concern for confusion about desire for	fondness for grasp of hatred of hope for interest in love of	need for participation in reason for respect for success in understanding of

ADJECTIVES and PREPOSITIONS
afraid of angry at aware of capable of careless about familiar with	fond of happy about interested in jealous of made of married to	proud of similar to sorry for sure of tired of worried about

VERBS and PREPOSITIONS
apologize for ask about ask for belong to bring up care for find out	give up grow up look for look forward to look up make up pay for	prepare for study for talk about think about trust in work for worry about

Idiomatic Expressions with Prepositions

• agree to a proposal, agree with a person, agree on a price, agree in principle
• argue about a matter, argue with a person, argue for/against a proposition
• compare to (to show likenesses), compare with (to show differences and sometimes similarities)
• correspond to a thing, correspond with a person
• differ from an unlike thing, differ with a person
• live at an address, live in a house or city, live on a street, live with other people